Fun with Kermit and ZMODEM over SSH • Hacker News Board

Re: Fun with Kermit and ZMODEM over SSH

#11

Post by bm3719 » Tue, Apr 25, 2023, 5:31 PM UTC

My only source of internet in undergrad was dialing into my university's modem pool and getting a shell on the main server (a DEC Alpha running OSF/1). Browsing the web was done through lynx.

That worked fine but every now and then, a site would have some inline image that I'd want to see, so I'd view source to get the img URL and then download that to /tmp and transfer the file to my local machine via zmodem. Usually, it wouldn't be worth the effort. I'd also download mp3s off IRC via DCC and queue up a bunch of data for zmodem to transfer overnight or when I was in class. I really appreciated those bytes back then. Now, not so much.

Re: Fun with Kermit and ZMODEM over SSH

#12

Post by sedatk » Tue, Apr 25, 2023, 5:31 PM UTC

Thankfully, ZModem existed. I’d never been able to use Kermit successfully back in the days, always had trouble with it. I even had more success with XModem.

Re: Fun with Kermit and ZMODEM over SSH

#13

Post by jedberg » Tue, Apr 25, 2023, 5:31 PM UTC

Kermit and ZMODEM, now that takes me back. Haven't thought about those protocols for a long time.

Re: Fun with Kermit and ZMODEM over SSH

#14

Post by rcfox » Tue, Apr 25, 2023, 5:32 PM UTC

marcodiego wrote: post #5

Project for the future: write an Arduino sketch which will send its own (compressed) source code using one of these protocols over the serial interface.

A telequine?

Re: Fun with Kermit and ZMODEM over SSH

#15

Post by yjftsjthsd-h » Tue, Apr 25, 2023, 5:36 PM UTC

jerf wrote: post #4

Hello! Thank you for starting me up! I'm the Kermit protocol and I'm happy to hel... wait, you want to transfer what file? What the hell is a giga byte? Well, man, OK, you're the user so you know best, but man, this is going to take like, days man, settle in, here we gooo ooooooo whooooooo OOOOOOOOO AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA !!!!!!!!!!1!! qcjqrjrcorRC!!! WHAT THE HECK WAS THAT? Did I just do megabytes per second ? Holy shit. A…

Thanks for the laugh (but also kind of serious) - reminds me of https://xkcd.com/2221/ (what a fast floppy drive you have!)

Re: Fun with Kermit and ZMODEM over SSH

#16

Post by Tepix » Tue, Apr 25, 2023, 5:39 PM UTC

I remember having to deal with Kermit on the dialup line to the university. The connection wasn't 8-bit clean and IIRC XON/XOFF wouldn't work either on their modem, so it was very finicky and flaky whenever you wanted to transfer something.

Aren't brains amazing, storing all those ancient unused acronyms for decades?

Re: Fun with Kermit and ZMODEM over SSH

#17

Post by defaultcompany » Tue, Apr 25, 2023, 5:42 PM UTC

bm3719 wrote: post #11

My only source of internet in undergrad was dialing into my university's modem pool and getting a shell on the main server (a DEC Alpha running OSF/1). Browsing the web was done through lynx. That worked fine but every now and then, a site would have some inline image that I'd want to see, so I'd view source to get the img URL and then download that to /tmp and transfer the file to my local machine via zmodem. Usuall…

This reminded me that I used to view images over my dialup connection directly in the terminal by catting the image to pbmtoascii and making my terminal font 1 pixel high. It wasn't exactly pretty but it worked.

Re: Fun with Kermit and ZMODEM over SSH

#18

Post by thrownaway561 » Tue, Apr 25, 2023, 5:47 PM UTC

LOL... The good old days of writing modem strings for OS/2.

Re: Fun with Kermit and ZMODEM over SSH

#19

Post by Koshkin » Tue, Apr 25, 2023, 5:47 PM UTC

sedatk wrote: post #12

Thankfully, ZModem existed. I’d never been able to use Kermit successfully back in the days, always had trouble with it. I even had more success with XModem.

My recent experience reviving an old DOS laptop with a serial port is consistent with this.

Re: Fun with Kermit and ZMODEM over SSH

#20

Post by myth_drannon » Tue, Apr 25, 2023, 5:50 PM UTC

mikecoles wrote: post #3

The article mentions 'Terminate'. That software was a joy to use. https://web.archive.org/web/19980627010642/http://www.termin...

The swiss knife of BBSing... it even had a Cost Manager that I used, so my parents won't kill me because of high phone bills.